Thought for Today
Proverbs 17:6 Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their parents.
Joel 2:28 Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
Mark 9:7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"
Luke 18:16 But Jesus called for them and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.
This past Friday evening, Greta and I attended our grandson’s high school Baccalaureate Mass. On Saturday, we attended the Commencement Exercises. I will not shamelessly and almost sinfully enumerate his various honors and accomplishments beyond saying how very proud we are of him. At one point, our own son remarked to us that he finally fully understands what we meant when he was young and we told him how proud we were (and still are) of him. As a parent, I understand those other times in the gospels when God said of Jesus, “Mark 1:11 You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
In a few more weeks, our youngest granddaughter will have her high school baccalaureate and commencement ceremonies. In a few months, she and her cousin will head off to college. All of our grandchildren will be embarking on the next phase of their lives. The two youngest will be entering college, the eldest is already in graduate school.
Each time one of them begins a new phase of life, I am reminded of the passage above from the prophet Joel. Each time, as we celebrate their academic progress and their advancement in maturity, I think about the promise of “your young men shall see visions.” Each time, I think of the promise a bit more inclusively as “your young people shall see visions, because our granddaughters are also visionaries.
Many Baccalaureate sermons (and homilies) and Commencement addresses include remarks about the future which lies ahead for the graduates. All of my own Baccalaureates and Commencements are shrouded in the past. It has been more than 10 years since I graduated from anything. I remember almost nothing from my high school graduation, equally as little from college or graduate school. I do remember my seminary graduation, in part because I was asked to speak as part of the ceremony. I wonder how many of the young men we saw graduate this past weekend will remember anything that day beyond tossing their mortarboards in the air.
As a parent and especially as a grandparent, I more fully understand today those words from Proverbs. Our grandchildren are truly the crown of their aged grandparent; and our children are our great glory. In a very real sense, children and grandchildren are the future of our nation and of the world. I suspect that few, if any, of those young men we saw this weekend, and any of those we will soon watch at our granddaughter’s commencement have a well-developed vision for the future. Few, if any, have thought that far ahead. At their age, neither had I. I knew that college lay ahead. I hoped that marriage to Greta loomed on the horizon. Did I have a clearly developed plan for a career as an engineer with an eventual stint in seminary? Did I anticipate ultimately being the pastor of First Parish Church of Newbury, Massachusetts? Hardly! That was far too far in the future.
I am now one of those old men who dream dreams. But, once many years ago, I was a young man who saw visions. Visions of a better world, of a world of almost limitless technological advancement. Some of those visions were realized, some still are in the future. Now, I also dream of the possibilities ahead for our grandchildren. Visions of a better world, of a world of almost limitless technological advancement. Now I challenge them with those famous words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Make it so!” I pray that they will.
Stay safe, dream the impossible dream, trust God,
Pastor Ray